Integrated circuits (ICs) are commonly disposed in carrier devices known as sleeves, tubes or magazines during the later stages of the manufacturing process and thereafter. These sleeves or tubes are generally constructed of hard, transparent plastic or similar materials. As will be evident hereinafter, it is also known to carry ICs in a metal tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,481 shows exemplary IC magazines. Figure 1 thereof shows a magazine holding a plurality of dual inline (DIP) devices. FIG. 5 therein shows a magazine holding a plurality of leadless chip carriers, such as a plastic leadless chip carrier (PLCC).
During certain late stage manufacturing operations, the integrated circuit devices may be subject to heating in an oven. Since the plastic sleeves cannot tolerate the degree of heat to which the integrated circuits are exposed, the integrated circuits have to be removed from the plastic tubes and loaded into metal tubes which can withstand the heat of the oven. After baking in the oven, the ICs are returned to plastic tubes for storage and shipping. The transfer of the integrated circuit devices, from tube-to-tube, must be accomplished with care in order to prevent any damage to the integrated circuit devices due to jarring or, in the case of leaded devices, bending of the device leads.
The transfer from tube-to-tube can be performed "manually". For example, a human operator can place one (e.g. plastic) sleeve containing a plurality of ICs end-to-end against another empty (e.g. metal) sleeve and essentially "pour" the ICs from the one sleeve to the other sleeve. Such manual handling is inconsistent with the need to reduce labor costs in the manufacture of integrated circuit devices, and is subject to problems of mishandling, and such gravity-fed systems have historically led to severe lead damage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,965 discloses an automated sleeve handler for conveying components particularly integrated chips received in individual receiving portions of an input magazine to individual, separate receiving portions of an output magazine. However, the design of this sleeve handler is relatively complex and inherently causes operation and maintenance problems beyond the scope of the ordinary handler to operate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,710 discloses an integrated circuit sleeve handler for use with a high-throughput integrated circuit handler. This patent is directed for example "to provide a sleeve handler which provides both full and empty sleeve handling with no manual intervening handling". Again, the design of this sleeve handler is relatively complex and inherently causes operation and maintenance problems which results in a machine beyond the scope of the ordinary handler to operate.
It is a problem underlying the present invention that there is no simple and relatively automatic technique for effecting the transfer of integrated circuit devices from a plastic tube to a metal tube, and vice-versa.